DIOGENES: In Search Of An Honest Politician!

DIOGENES invites you to pull up a chair on this rainy day and read
posts from around the world.
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Wednesday, May 10, 2017

In Firing Comey, Trump Shows He's Afraid of No One

Say you're a terrorist out there, plotting your next massacre as ISIS does. Or a malevolent and unpredictable dictator, contemplating another illegal missile launch over Japan, such as North Korea's Kim Jong-un. Imagine you're a power player yourself, such as Russia's Vladimir Putin. Imagine you're a crazed failure running out of money as the mobs build, such as Chavista Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro.
What do you think when President Trump fires 'the most powerful man in Washington?'
And not just fires him, but does it in the coldest possible way - publicly, through the television screens, as Comey bizarrely laughed, convinced he was unfireable, just as he began to make a speech in Los Angeles. It was an artful use of the media, of which Trump has a masterly understanding. "You are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately," Trump's letter read, released soon afterward the laugh.
You're not going to mess with that man.
World leaders, ever since the days of President Reagan's air traffic controller's debacle have long noted how a U.S. president behaves on domestic mattters as their cue to how to act with the U.S. leadership. Part of holding power is knowing how to use power. Trump knows how to use power and his firing of Comey shows that he is not afraid of powerful people.
{..snip..}

Comey is finally terminated. Now before you lefties go nuclear…

By now you know that James Comey has been fired by Donald Trump. It was the right thing to do. I had been waiting for this day since last July when I wrote a couple of posts about Comey. First, Comey established a two tiered system of law- one for the Clinton's and one for the rest of us. Second, Comey destroyed the integrity of the Justice system. He boggled the minds of everyone when he publicly recommended against the prosecution of Hillary Clinton. That was not his call. He made a clear-cut case for why Hillary Clinton should be prosecuted and then demurred. Brett Stephens, then of the WSJ:

“In any normal political season this would destroy her candidacy,” Stephens declared, “because the evidence that James Comey laid out shows that she has been telling untruths consistently for fifteen months. This ought to play into Trump’s sweet spot, his view that the system is rigged, except that in a week when he should be gaining strength he’s talking about Saddam Hussein being terrific in the war on terror.” Stephens also accused James Comey of being less than principled, saying, “This was a purely political decision.”

1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but the FBI opted against investigating him again.2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported, retains that material for decades (even if no wrongdoing is found).
3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the Taliban -- but didn't intervene, leading many critics to argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31 Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.
4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that two private jets were being used primarily for counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller's business and personal travel.
5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a "backdoor" that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock the cell phones of various suspects, the company refused, sparking a battle between the feds and America's biggest tech company. What makes this incident indicative of Comey's questionable management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack the San Bernardino terrorist's phone, and b) Almost every other major national security figure sided with Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that such a "crack" would inevitably wind up in the wrong hands.

There are five more at the link. And he never put hillary clinton under oath.
A nano-second is a billionth of second. That's the amount of time it took for democrats to blow the dog whistle and they all have come running.

Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., a Senate Intelligence Committee member, made a more direct connection. “President Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director Comey smacks of President Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre. If this is an effort to stop the investigations into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, it won’t succeed,” he said.But it was Senate Minority Whip Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who made the biggest impression, going to the Senate floor about an hour after the announcement to clearly outline the stakes..
“Any attempt to stop or undermine this FBI investigation would raise grave constitutional issues,” he told colleagues.
Trump’s sudden action “raises the question as to whether Russian interference in the last presidential campaign by the Trump campaign will also be investigated by the FBI,” Durbin said.
He demanded “clarification by the White House as soon as possible as to whether this investigation will continue.”

The first count against Comey, according to Rosenstein, was his July 5, 2016 announcement during which he alleged Clinton and her colleagues were “extremely careless” in handling classified material on her personal email and server but also said the FBI would not recommend charges.The memo said Comey was “wrong to usurp” then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s authority.
“It is not the function of the Director to make such an announcement,” Rosenstein wrote, adding that Comey “at most” should have said the FBI had finished its investigation and presented findings to prosecutors.
The memo said Comey compounded “the error” by holding a press conference to “release derogatory information about the subject of a declined criminal investigation,” suggesting he did so “gratuitously.”
The memo said: “The Director laid out his version of the facts for the news media as if it were a closing argument, but without a trial.” Rosenstein called it a “textbook example” of what prosecutors and agents are “taught not to do.”
The second count against Comey concerned his Oct. 28, 2016 notification to Congress that the bureau was taking another look at the Clinton case in light of newly discovered emails. While Comey has said he did not want to conceal information, Rosenstein said simply refraining from publicizing “non-public information” would not have been concealment.

Comey's firing was not abrupt. He has been under study for some time. And...
Sally Yates, the current poster girl heroine for the left, has expressed full confidence in Rod Rosenstine:(Excerpt) Read more at floppingaces.net ...

How to Pay for the Wall

When President Trump signed a stopgap spending bill that funds the government for the next five months, the media trumpeted the news that the bill doesn’t include money to begin building a wall on our southern border. Nancy Pelosi gloated that the omission was “a defeat for President Trump,” and even some of his most ardent supporters expressed disappointment at the lack of progress on Trump’s signature campaign issue.
The critics spoke too soon, because adequate funding sources are hiding in plain sight. And yes, Mexico will indirectly pay for it, just as President Trump promised.
“We’ll build the wall,” the president assured the 80,000 people who attended this year’s convention of the National Rifle Association in Atlanta. “Don’t even think about it. That’s an easy one.”
The positive reaction of NRA members was illustrated by Kathleen Mahn, a 45-year-old stay-at-home mom and fitness instructor from Peachtree City, Ga. “So far, I think he’s done better than he’s been given credit for in the media,” she told USA Today after cheering Trump’s remarks.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions dropped a clue in his Sunday morning TV appearance on April 23, telling George Stephanopoulos, “We’re going to get paid for it one way or the other. There are a lot of ways we can find money to help pay for this.
“I know there’s $4 billion a year in excess payments, according to the Department of the Treasury’s own inspector general several years ago, that are going to payments to people — tax credits that they shouldn’t get. Now, these are mostly Mexicans. And those kind of things add up — $4 billion a year for 10 years is $40 billion.”
The attorney general was referring to a July 2011 report by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration (TIGTA) who said that individuals not authorized to work in the U.S. received $4.2 billion in refundable tax credits in 2009. Not all illegal aliens are Mexicans, of course, but most of them either came from or passed through Mexico on their way to the United States.
Low-wage workers are eligible for both the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), which requires a valid Social Security number, and the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC), which does not. Illegal aliens have learned how to cheat the system by claiming the ACTC to receive a “refund” of up to $1,000 per child.
As a presidential candidate in 2015, Donald Trump cited the $4.2 billion figure as part of his plan to enforce U.S. immigration law. Even the leftwing Politifact had to admit that the inspector general’s report “corroborates” Trump’s claim that $4.2 billion a year can be saved by stopping those illegal refunds.
The potential for illegal refunds has existed since the tax credit was first enacted in 2001, but a new member of Congress is determined to end the ripoff. The first bill introduced by newly elected Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA), would close the loophole by simply requiring a valid Social Security number to claim the refundable credit.
Stanching the flow of illegal tax refunds would be enough to pay for the wall by itself, but even that’s not the biggest source of indirect funding to build the wall. It would also relieve the burden that illegal aliens place on many other programs that make up our taxpayer-funded social safety net for low-income households.
Dr. Steven Camarota explained how this works in his April 27 testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The key point is that people who would be stopped by the border wall lack the skills or education that would permit them to earn enough to support themselves.
Based on data from the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Camarota testified that the vast majority of illegal border-crossers never finished high school, a level of education that is far less than Americans as a whole or even immigrants as a whole. No matter how hard-working they may be, high-school dropouts just can’t make it in America without relying on tax-funded programs for food, housing, and medical care.
Dr. Camarota also cited the monumental 2013 report by Robert Rector, who has long been the leading authority on the 72 means-tested programs which are collectively known as welfare. Rector calculated that the average illegal immigrant imposes a lifetime fiscal cost (benefits consumed minus taxes paid) of $74,722.
In other words, for every 100,000 people stopped by the wall on the southern border, our nation saves $7.5 billion in what we would otherwise have to shell out to support them and their families. With that staggering savings, the border wall would clearly pay for itself. It’s the most cost-effective infrastructure we could build.

You actually would die without your coffee, research says!

But you have to drink it like you really mean it.

For years doctors have looked askance at us coffee drinkers, warning us about the dangers caffeine poses to our hearts, brains, and bowels. They implored us to quit coffee entirely or at least keep it to one cup a day. But did we listen? No. And what do we have to show for it?
Really, really good health.
Listen up, coffee drinkers. This is the day of our vindication. It turns out we were right all along — we actually would die without our coffee.

Drinking two to three cups of coffee per day is particularly beneficial for us women, as it cuts our risk of depression by 15 percent. It also lowers our risk of endometrial cancer by 22 percent.
But coffee’s benefits are not merely protective and preventative. A 2012 German study found that drinking coffee three times per day helped patients recover from bowel surgery faster. And the next time someone warns you that coffee will stain your teeth, don’t believe it. Brazilian scientists have found that coffee breaks down the bacteria that causes plaque, and can prevent or slow down tooth decay.
And for you moms out there, a study in my kitchen this morning found that two cups of coffee in rapid succession improved my happiness level by 100 percent. Pint-sized researchers confirmed that coffee “makes you so much more smiley, Mommy.”
So pull out the biggest mug you have and drink up, because coffee is almost certainly the only reason you’re still alive. Cheers!

Barack Obama: Eating More Steaks Contributes to Climate Change!

Former President Barack Obama warned the world that more people on the planet were eating meat, causing a dramatic rise in climate emissions.

“As people want to increase meat consumption, that in turn is spiking the growth of greenhouse emissions coming out of the agricultural sector,” Obama said, pointing to countries that were consuming more meat.
The former president shared his views about the growing threat during a conversation about food with his former chef Sam Kass at a food innovation summit in Milan.
“People aren’t as familiar with the impact of cows and methane,” Obama said, adding that “as people want to increase more meat consumption, that in turn is spiking the growth of greenhouse emissions coming out of the agricultural sectors.”
The amount of cows, Obama explained, were contributing to global pollution, alluding to the amounts of methane gas emissions from cow herds.
“No matter what, we are going to see an increase in meat consumption,” Obama said, pointing to developing economies in China, India, Indonesia, and Vietnam. More advanced countries, Obama said, would have to teach people to “have a smaller steak” and explore reductions to their meat consumption.
“What it does mean is that we’re also going to have to find ways to produce protein in a more efficient way,” he said.
During the conversation, Obama argued with Kass about how many steaks he had cooked him.
Kass said that he probably cooked “thousands of steaks” for the president, but Obama interrupted.
“I don’t think, thousands,” he protested.
“Well hundreds maybe,” Kass backtracked. “I’ve been cooking for you for 10 years.”
“What is true is that I’m not a vegetarian,” Obama admitted, adding that he “respected vegetarians” but continued to eat meat.

ACLU: Why, Yes, The Travel Ban Would Be Constitutional If A President Hillary Enacted It

(NTKNetwork) ACLU Lawyer Omar Jadwat, arguing against President Trump’s travel ban before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, admitted that the same exact travel ban “could be” constitutional if it were enacted by Hillary Clinton.
Jadwat argued that Trump’s campaign animus motivated the order, making it illegitimate. This claim was challenged by the Fourth Circuit’s Judge Paul Niemeyer.
“If a different candidate had won the election and then issued this order, I gather you wouldn’t have any problem with that?” Niemeyer asked.
Jadwat dodged on directly answering the question at first, but Niemeyer persisted, asking the question again.
Jadwat again tried to avoid the question, asking for clarification on the hypothetical, but Niemeyer once again demanded an answer.
“We have a candidate who won the presidency, some candidate other than President Trump won the presidency and then chose to issue this particular order, with whatever counsel he took,” Niemeyer said. “Do I understand that just in that circumstance, the executive order should be honored?”
“Yes, your honor, I think in that case, it could be constitutional,” Jadwat admitted.
So, essentially, this is all about Trump Derangement Syndrome, as well as Liberals, Democrats, and groups like the ACLU being against whatever a Republican president does simply because that person is a Republican. (there’s audio of the exchange at the link).
(Powerline) The Democrats who attacked President Trump’s travel order in front of carefully-selected Democratic judges made the extraordinary claim that the President’s statements on the stump, as a candidate, were somehow relevant to whether the order was constitutional. This claim implies that an order may be unconstitutional if issued by one president, while the exact same order would be perfectly fine if issued by another. This is an absurd result.
It may be absurd, but it is what the Democrats believe. ACLU lawyer Omar Jadwat, arguing today before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, told the court that President Trump’s travel order “could be constitutional” if it had been written by Hillary Clinton.
Also in the audio, Jadwat is asked if the order was valid, and answered no, because “the order was unprecedented”, to which a flabergasted justice answered “So the first order on anything is invalid?”
Unless it was President Hillary giving the order. Then it would have been cool with the ACLU and liberals.

This Machine Gun Robot Will Probably Lead the Uprising One Day

Do you ever wonder what tomorrow holds? Some people are pretty convinced that the future will be filled with flying cars and jetpacks and robot butlers. But here in the year 2017, I’m not so sure anymore. I have a suspicion that our future might be filled with more machine gun-toting robots, like the one seen above, than robotic butlers.
This particular robot is called a multi-utility tactical transport (MUTT) and was demonstrated by the General Dynamics Land Systems and the US Navy during an event at Camp Pendleton late last month. And despite its adorable canine-inspired acronym, it’s a killer. Yes, that’s a machine gun on top.

And yes, the barrel of the machine gun knocks the antenna on the vehicle, which seems like a design flaw at best. But who am I to judge? That robot will surely be my boss by decade’s end.

Why Trump Was Dead Right To Tell Comey: 'You're Fired'

Comey's Downfall: President Trump, perhaps surprising no one, fired FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday. The only question in most people's minds, both Democrats and Republicans, was no doubt: "What took you so long?"

More than one media outlet called the firing a "shock." Not really.
No matter what you think of Comey, his bad timing seemed impeccable. During the last campaign season, he repeatedly made announcements about investigations of both leading candidates' behavior and campaigns. It became a running issue for Comey in Washington with both parties. NBC accurately called him a "Washington lightning rod," for both parties.
The controversy really began in March of 2015, when it was first revealed by The New York Times that Hillary Clinton had used a home-brew email server to handle her official business. Later, government investigators found that top-secret information had made it onto her server, an apparent violation of the law. Prompted by both the State Department and the National Security director's office, the FBI began investigating.